MARS LANDER DISPENSED

A homage to the Mars Perseverance landing today.

Moonbase deployed an empty cake strands dispenser and an old e-cig filter to do the job!

Your Earliest Memory?

 My missus can recall stuff when she was 4 or even earlier! Like sat in a playpen! I can't remember anywhere near as far back. In fact I would say any early memories I may have had are now just memories of memories! 

How far back can you remember readers?

SAFE LANDING PERSEVERANCE!

 

KEV'S MARS ROVER

Hi,

Happy landings!

Kevin D

UK

WELL-THUMBED AND EAR-MARKED: THREE FILMS FIRST

I've been earmarking films in old film guides for years. I like old guides as it limits the film numbers and makes sure they have some age. One particular book I use is a small chunky tome from 1993 and is really well-thumbed and earmarked. In a way I suppose I collect films using these guides.

This year, and part of my lockdown sanity plan, I've been watching the films I've earmarked over the years in this book. It seemed like the right thing to do. Most of the films are horror and Sci-fi and I've watched the first three this year, chronologically, all beginning with C. They're all fairly obscure and fortunately all were available free of charge on You Tube. Do you know them readers? Here you go.

The Carpenter 1988 - this slasher flick starred Wings Hauser, a great name but an actor I'd never heard of. It concerns a couple doing up a new place. Overnight some great work gets done by an unknown tradesman. This turns out to be the previous owner who happens to be dead. He's a dab hand with a drill and a circular saw as his unfortunate victims find out, namely anyone who offends his new crush, the current lady owner. OK, its cheese central and as dumb as it gets but I enjoyed The Carpenter and appreciated the obvious effort everyone had put in.

The Clonus Horror 1979 - this was a pleasant surprise and reminded me of a mix between West World and Coma, as it's about a secret organ-donor village, where the bright young things who live there have no idea as to their surgical fate. Years before The Island and the Truman Show, it highlights the plight of one romantic couple and in particular a male, who escapes Clonus and enters the real world. There are some shock moments and overall I really enjoyed the pace and look of the Clonus Horror. AKA Parts.

The Comeback 1978 - This was another pleasant find and I was chuffed to watch another Pete Walker film, a director I like, having enjoyed his Frightmare as a teenager at the flicks. The Comeback is basically about a singer who rents a huge house to make an album, where, alas the people around him are hacked to pieces by a masked hag. I thought it was well acted and I enjoyed the locations and the general Seventies features such as a Rolls Royce, a retro penthouse and the clothes. A couple of things really fascinated me: Jack Jones the American pop singer plays the lead, an artist I've heard of but never seen or heard and also a prop book that's used in the film, which I coincidentally had as a Kung Fu-mad teenager in the early Seventies, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives. Further attractions are the chap who plays Charlie in Charlie's Angels and the Auckland-born actress/Professor Pamela Stephenson, who would later become the wife of Billy Connelly. AKA Encore.

LP UPDATE: SANTA ON ROCKER

 I've spotted a couple of LP toys this year online.

You know LP or Lik be. Sometimes their toys are listed as IDL too.

Here's the LP puppy. We've seen this before on Moonbase but its still nice.

This however is new to the blog, the LP Santa on Rocker.

It looks great with its box.

There's even a secret drawer!

and the all important LP logo and model number 1879.

Have you got anything like this readers?

Mars is a Harsh Mistress

 The Planetary Society have kindly compiled this handy guide to all the probes which have been thrown at mars over the last few decades. What it doesn't show, however are all the failed attempts to reach the Red Planet. The Soviet Union tried countless times in the early sixties to reach Mars, most of which never even made it out of the atmosphere. Nowadays, it seems that space probes reach their destinations with almost insolent ease - New Horizons visited Arrokoth in the Kuiper Belt, Dawn photographed the Ceres asteroid, Osiris-Rex snatched a handful of material from Bennu, before preparing to deliver it back to Earth and Curiosity Rover is still trundling around the caldera, eight years after landing.

Mars has had an interesting representation in various films over the years, some of which have focussed on the inherent dangers, both real and imaginary. 'Angry Red Planet' 1959 populated the world with laughable 'spiderbats' and man eating plants, Ray Bradbury's 'Martian Chronicles' 1980 was a made for TV series with a script which was as dry as the martian plains. Despite this, toy maker Larami actually produced a limited run of mego-style action dolls, but they are as uninspiring as Rock Hudson's hairpiece.

 John Carpenter attempted to put a more moderns spin on things in 2001 with 'Ghost of Mars', but despite his previously positive track record with sci-fi, somehow missed the mark entirely.

Not all films featuring Mars are bad, however. Disney's 'John Carter' 2012 which brought Edgar Rice Burroughs franchise to the big screen is imaginative and entertaining, even though it was largely brushed under the mat to make way for the burgeoning Star Wars franchise.

Hollywood jumped on the martian bandwagon in 2000 with two films, 'Mission to Mars' and 'Red Planet'. Both of which featured some excellent effects and production design. The sequence where the ship is struck by a meteorite shower in Mission is especially tense, even if using a sachet of Coke to find a rupture in the hull is a little far fetched. 'Red Planet', despite similarly realistic technology, stretches credulity a little after seasoned captain Carrie Ann Moss, seemingly forgets simple Newtonian physics and attempts to stem a fire with a gas powered extinguisher, slamming herself into a bulkhead with the recoil. The film does have some impressive F/X to make up for the appalling acting, the section where the landing capsule, supported by pneumatic balloons to cushion impact, crashes down a mountain side is particularly good.

Ridley Scotts production of 'The Martian' is possibly one of the most realistic representations of Mars to date. Author Andy Weir wrote the technically and factually correct novel in 2011, but found little interest from publishers, so decided to release the novel online as a free partwork. After a positive reception, it was collected into a Kindle version, which sailed to the top of the charts. Subsequently, it was released as hardback and then found success as a blockbuster movie. The ebook version is available here: 

https://www.readingsanctuary.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Martian-by-Andy-Weir-book.pdf

Space realism seems to e a bit of a hot topic recently, with such films as 'Gravity' 2013, 'Life' 2017, 'Ad Astra' 2019 and the Netflix original 'Midnight Sky'. Ad Astra has some amazingly realistic sections with a moon rover journey which could be straight from the NASA archives and stunningly beautiful visions of Neptune. Credulity is stretched to the limits with all the films, as are the fundamental physical laws, but it does make for some interesting watching.

Possibly one of the most entertaining visions of Mars is Arnie's 1990 outing 'Total Recall'. Based loosely on Philip K. Dick's 1966 story 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale', director Paul Verhoeven gets Arnie at the pinnacle of his prowess, not taking himself too seriously and clearly enjoying the ultra-macho, gung-ho action, alongside two strong female leads. Although Mars only features in half of the film, its well realised and with effects, which for turn of the decade, were pretty good. I still hesitate to pick my nose after watching it. Its also responsible for some of Mr Schwarzeneggers most memorable quotes, such as "Screw You!" and the seminal "Get your ass to Mars!". Michael Ironside as the lead thug is at his vessel busting best, as his barely supressed rage at seeing Arnie fraternising with Sharon Stone almost brings on a reprisal of the head busting scene in 'Scanners'. 

DINKY 280: ROB C'S BUS

Woodsy

Thought of one more Dinky Toy for that little post earlier. I was obsessed with this extra-cool split-level bus, because there was nothing remotely like it in the U.S. I had a bunch of toy buses, from Dinky, Corgi and others, but Dinky 280 was my absolute favorite!

Rob C

Ct

USA